


NI (Needs Improvement)

by LovelyPoet



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Father Figures, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-19
Updated: 2013-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-02 02:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1051554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyPoet/pseuds/LovelyPoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek doesn't know what he was expecting to happen when he came back to town, months gone without contact, but he's not expecting it to be nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	NI (Needs Improvement)

**Author's Note:**

> Blame this on [this tumblr post](http://helenish.tumblr.com/post/67442186524/sheriff-stilinski-i-will-pay-you-one-thousand) by Helenish.
> 
> Let's just pretend that 3B isn't going to be an unrelenting trauma-rama, shall we?

Derek doesn't know what he was expecting to happen when he came back to town, months gone without contact, but he's not expecting it to be nothing. He let's Scott know that he's back, promises to stay out of the way, and waits for things to go to shit. They don't, and somehow the waiting for the inevitable is almost worse. He takes a month-to-month lease, nods at people as he passes them on the street, goes whole weeks in a row without having to wash blood out from under his nails. He stays away from Scott, from Isaac, from Stiles, from everyone. It's not avoidance, it's just easy enough to do now that death and disaster isn't constantly forcing them into the same space. 

He goes for runs at night, tearing through the woods waiting for something to chase him or need to be chased. There's nothing. 

He grabs a burger for lunch the next day and eats it at a picnic table in the park, sick of his own four walls, the sound of his breathing and heartbeat. He's taking the last bite when he spots the Sheriff watching him from across the street, lips pressed tight together and forehead creased. He nods at Derek, just a slight bob of his head, as though there's no reason Derek shouldn't be enjoying a greasy burger on a sunny day. Derek clenches his jaw, feels the grind of teeth as he crumples up his burger wrapper and drops it on the ground, kicks it and juts his chin out. 

The Sheriff frowns and shakes his head, turns away. Derek suddenly thinks about the report card he brought home at the end of freshman year, straight C- across all four grading periods in math. How his father had sighed and said Derek's name three times in the single heavy exhale, but hadn't bothered grounding him, or even assigning him extra summer chores, like he didn't even expect better of him anymore. It's enough to rattle him for the rest of the day, make him look over his shoulder waiting for a reprimand, even once he’s home alone putting the empty milk carton back in the refrigerator and leaving his wet towel in the middle of the bathroom floor after his shower.

Three days later, he’s two people in front of the Sheriff at the supermarket, and he can’t stop himself from palming a pack of gum while he’s smiling just an edge toward dangerous at the girl at the register. She’s blushing and doesn’t notice, but he hears Stilinski clearing his throat. Derek feels heat creeping up the back of his neck and it takes every bit of nerve to slip the gum into his pocket rather than setting it on the conveyer. He leaves his fifty cents change on the check out counter by the dispenser. He's slow to leave the parking lot, waiting, but Stilinski walks right past without a word.

He double parks, leaves meters unpaid, takes the handicap spot outside the movie theater. The tickets all have the same ID number on them, and he stacks them neatly in the middle of his kitchen counter. 

He's taking up two parking spots outside the laundromat, and when he leaves he finds the Sheriff slipping a parking ticket under under his windshield wiper.

"Problem Sheriff?" Derek sneers.

"Just doing my job, son," Stilinski nods, walking away. He gets in his cruiser but doesn’t leave. Derek pulls the ticket from his windshield and tears it into four pieces. He gives Derek a stern look as he drives away, (Derek tapes it back together as soon as he gets home. It has the same ID number as the other three. He makes sure the Sheriff isn’t at work when he goes down to the station to pay them).

"Dude, parking tickets and petty crimes?" Stiles says, the next time he runs into Derek. "I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but you know he can’t like ground you, right?"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Derek says as he stuffs his hands deep in his pockets, shoulders rising up protectively.

"Okay," Stiles shrugs and walks away. It's not avoidance, Derek reminds himself, it’s just easier to stay away, try not to be the reason for other people's trouble.

He buys the spray paint without really thinking about it, and he’s tagging the brick wall at the gate of the community garden when he hears the the Sheriff’s voice behind him night a few nights later. It startles him enough that his hand slips, spattering his own arm with a spray of bright blue.

"Never took you for the artistic type, Hale." Stilinski says.

"You going to arrest me now, Sheriff?" Derek says, holding his hands out. "Couldn’t get me on murder, but look, you caught me red handed. Or, close enough I guess"

But the Sheriff just leans in and plucks the spray can from Derek’s hands. "Wouldn’t be worth the time or paperwork. Go home, Derek." He says. "And try to park somewhere legal."

It’s a dismissal, cold and heavy in the pit of Derek’s gut. He goes home and doesn’t leave the apartment for the next few days. Not until the sirens wake him in the middle of the night. 

Derek doesn’t know why he goes running toward the sound, but when he gets to where he heard it, Stilinski’s cruiser is in the empty parking lot of the gas station. Derek can see him inside the darkened convenience store, gun drawn and face tense. The kid in front of him has a gun too, but he’s waving it around, jumpy, scared. Derek knows too much about what kind of stupid damage a scared kid can do. So he’s not really thinking when he throws himself through the window, taking the kid down in a shower of glass. He gets a bullet to the shoulder for his trouble and god, even when he knows it’s not enough to kill him, it’s still fucking painful. He yanks the gun from the kid's hands, sending it spinning across the floor to rest at Stilinski's feet before he closes a hand around the kid's throat, points of his claws sharp against fragile skin and Derek knows how easy it would be to tear him open.

"Fucking punk," Derek spits out. "Not so tough now, huh?"

"Hale! Enough." Stilinski says it sharp and clear, cutting through the haze of anger and pain, enough dangerous force behind it that Derek's spine tenses, coils with a tight heat of shame as he pushes himself off and away from the kid, backs slowly out of the store. The kid is sobbing now, spattered in Derek’s blood and he doesn’t put up any kind of struggle when Stilinski gets cuffs on him and shoves him into the back of the cruiser.

Derek’s too busy prying the bullet out of his shoulder to even notice the Sheriff approaching him until he feels a hand clamp hard, painfully tight on the back of his neck. He jerks, but Sheriff's grip holds. 

"What the hell do you think you were doing tonight, son?" Stilinski says, voice sharp edged and too quiet for Derek to think he’s anything but completely furious.

"You’re welcome," Derek mutters, dropping the bullet to the ground and wiping bloody hands against his jeans, revealing faint traces of paint still staining his skin. He pokes again at his shoulder, hissing at the sting of fresh skin knitting together.

"Jesus Christ, you’re a piece of work, aren't you?" Stilinski mutters, and when he pulls Derek lets himself be dragged over and shoved into the front seat of the cruiser. "I’m taking this kid in and booking him and then you and I are going to have a talk, Hale."

The Sheriff leaves him in the car when they get to the station, and Derek knows it would be easy enough to take off. He's not even locked in. He could be home and in the shower before the kid is even processed, but he waits. And when the Sheriff gets back in the car and starts their talk with “I don’t know what’s been going through that thick skull of yours since you got back in town, but if you ever pull a stunt like that on me again…” Derek feels his hands start to shake.

"I can take care of myself," He says. 

"Doing a real bang up job of it," Stilinski snaps back at him, "Vandalism, interfering in police business, getting yourself shot..."

"Better me than you." Derek says, but despite the truth of it the words don't come as steady as he wants them to. 

"Better nobody. My preferred endgame is nobody gets shot, Derek. And nobody had to tonight. I'd be a pretty terrible Sheriff if I couldn't see through a scared kid with a big attitude, don't you think?" Stilinski says, catching Derek with a sidelong glance. "If someone is dead or bleeding because of me, even indirectly, then I made a mistake somewhere along the way. I know you don't know me that well or under the best of circumstances, but I'm pretty good at my job and try really hard to keep from making those kinds of mistakes."

They fall silent and the next thing Derek knows the car has pulled to a stop in front of the Stilinski house. Stiles’ light is on in his window, but Derek can hear him snoring lightly. Derek pops his seat-belt release and climbs out of the car. 

"Good talk. See you around," He says. Before he can even take a step toward the street, the Sheriff has a firm hand clasped on his collar again.

"That kid didn't scare me tonight, Derek. And you don’t scare me either, you know. So why don’t you just make this easy on both of us and come in?" Stilinski nods toward the door. "We can have a drink, finish our talk, because I'm pretty sure we're nowhere even close to done. Then maybe in the morning you and I can head on down to the park. I hear they’re having a community clean-up day to deal with some recent littering and graffiti problems"

"Yes, sir," Derek says, working to force the words past the lump in his throat.

"Atta boy," Stilinski says, his hand giving a gentle squeeze to the back of Derek’s neck before leading him inside. 

Derek sits at the table, and when Stilinski sits across from him, face serious but not angry, he feels something that’s been rattling around inside him for too long settle into place.

"Now let’s discuss your recent behavior, shall we…"


End file.
